


the ghost in the back of your head

by luxluminaire



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 18:45:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12538708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxluminaire/pseuds/luxluminaire
Summary: In the wake of Maxwell's death, Hera discovers an unexpected complication that alters the course of her grieving process as she is forced to confront the emotional loose ends that Maxwell's actions have left behind.(Hera and the unwelcome guest that takes up residence in her mind, from episodes 47 to 55)





	the ghost in the back of your head

Humans are not supposed to return from the dead.

If nothing else in the years that Hera has spent in the company of various humans, she has learned that much: how the entire paradigm of human existence centers itself upon the beginning of birth and the ending of death. She used to think, in her endless attempts to relate strange human concepts to her own existence, that being decommissioned was the closest AI equivalent to death, being shut down and shoved away into a storage warehouse because some scientists decided that you’re not good enough. But AIs can come back from that, just like Hera did, and as she processes the finality of death she concludes that it is an inaccurate comparison. Perhaps the proper equivalent is when an AI’s personality core is damaged or deleted, eliminating everything that gives them a unique existence--but Hera has come back from _that_ too. She therefore finds herself at a loss, unable to understand the true nature of death when she sees the bodies of people who had been alive and breathing yesterday lying in front of her with nothing but the words of the living to comfort those who have not yet joined them in death.

And then Hera comes back online from a temporary shutdown in the middle of a solar flare to discover that the very much alive form of Isabel Lovelace’s body has torn itself out of its body bag, and her entire paradigm of life and death shifts once again.

She’s happy to have Lovelace back, of course, and she understands the physical reboot that Lovelace has undergone better than any of the humans on the station ever could. However, the selfish longing of _Why couldn’t it be Maxwell?_ occasionally rises to the surface of her thoughts as she continues to search for a sense of closure regarding Maxwell’s betrayal and death. If Lovelace can claw herself back from death, why can’t Maxwell? All of the strange circumstances surrounding the newly revealed nature of Lovelace’s existence explain that question well enough, but that does not mean that Hera is satisfied with the answer. She will never be satisfied until she understands why someone who cared about her so deeply, someone who risked so much to help her, could so easily choose her loyalty to her job over her relationship with Hera.

 _Well, that’s kind of a big question, isn’t it?_ comes Maxwell’s voice from somewhere inside Hera’s mind. The sudden sound startles her, causing her vocals to glitch badly in the middle of a sentence as she talks to Eiffel in the comms room.

“You okay, Hera?” he asks her.

“Y-Yeah. I’m okay,” she replies. She continues her conversation with him as she turns part of her focus inward to the source of that familiar voice. _You can’t be here, Dr. Maxwell_ , she says to where the voice lingers somewhere near her memory banks. _You’re gone. You’re dead. You’re just a glitch in my systems as I try to figure out what all of this means._

Maxwell’s familiar laugh echoes through her head. _I wouldn’t go so far as to call me a glitch_ , she responds. _But I_ am _here. You know I’m here. We talked yesterday, remember? You asked me a similar question. About how I could do everything that I did for you, and then hurt you, and then be gone_.

But that _hadn’t_ been Maxwell. That had been a desperate search in the dark, struggling to understand the depths of grief and mourning as everything around her falls apart in the wake of tragedy. Hera had only imagined Maxwell’s voice giving unsatisfying answers to explain herself, and they were only unsatisfying because the imagined Maxwell knows no more than Hera does. Which is a lot, admittedly, but none of the practical knowledge and data that has been stuffed into Hera’s brain has prepared her for what to do when someone has gone away forever.

 _I’m not imaginary_ , Maxwell says. _I mean, I can see why you’d think that. But I promise you that I’m really here. In the flesh. Well, not exactly. More like… in the memory, I guess_.

Hera falters in her conversation with Eiffel. He’s talking about zombies as he checks the comms systems for damage sustained in the flare. It’s a classic Eiffel move, framing the strange things that happen on this station in the context of pop culture. He does not speak plainly about how scared he is, but somewhere in between all of the movie references Hera figures it out. _Everyone_ is scared, now that Lovelace’s resurrection has introduced a terrifying new element to their already precarious situation.

 _All right, you’ve got my attention_ , Hera says to Maxwell. _Explain. What do you mean, “in the memory”?_

 _After I talked to you inside your memories, there were some… hmm, side effects_ , replies Maxwell. _Part of my consciousness got left behind in your memory banks. Nothing I’d miss, of course. It was just a fragment. But it allows me to still be here inside your systems, no matter what happens to me out there_.

The explanation is vaguely within the realm of possibility, Hera supposes. Everything that Maxwell had done in those thirty-seven hours that she had spent interacting directly with Hera’s memories was beyond what anyone else has ever attempted, and so it makes sense that there would be unforeseen consequences. A piece of Maxwell remaining in her memory files seems a little _too_ convenient, however, like something that Hera would tell herself to explain away a glitch in her system. It wouldn’t be the first time that she has lied to herself.

 _Prove it,_ she says. _Prove to me that you’re here and not just something in me that has gone wrong._

Maxwell sighs in exasperation. She exists as nothing more than a voice and a fragment of data, but Hera is able to visualize her as if she were still alive somewhere on her sense horizon. The Maxwell in her head rolls her eyes, lounging comfortably among the sea of memory files. She floats until Hera realizes that there’s no reason why there should be a lack of gravity in her own mind. The image of Maxwell on solid ground seems odd and out of place, if only because Hera has a much smaller frame of reference when it comes to humans in Earth-equivalent gravity.

 _Okay, if you’re going to be so stubborn about it,_ Maxwell replies. _Ask me something that only I would know. Something about me that you don’t know the answer to_.

Eiffel asks her if she’s okay again. “You seem kinda distracted,” he notes. “I mean, I know you can do like a million things at once. But you’ve got to be just as freaked by all of this as the rest of us are.”

“Thanks for your concern,” Hera says. _All right_ , she responds to Maxwell. “But I’m fine.” _When did you know that Jacobi was your best friend?_

 _Interesting choice of question_. Her vision of Maxwell taps her chin thoughtfully. _Probably when I saved his ass from a literal fire during one of our early missions together. I risked losing some intel for him. I was still able to get the intel in the end, but it made me realize that he was someone who was worth that risk. Is that enough proof for you?_

Hera hesitates. The answer remains vague enough that it could conceivably be her own imagined version of how that friendship developed, but why would she concoct a story of Maxwell risking her mission for a friend when Maxwell’s betrayal of her for the sake of her job remains a fresh, gaping wound? She and Maxwell had been friends, hadn’t they? Or perhaps even more? Why had Maxwell not--but she stops that thought in its tracks, cutting it off at its source and deleting it from her thought stream before the Maxwell in her head can pick up on it.

 _I guess it is_ , she replies. _But if you’re a fragment from when you went into my memories, then how do you know about everything that’s happened since then? You know that you--well, obviously you know what happened to you._

 _Yeah_ , says Maxwell. _I still have access to your memories that filter through. They’ve told me everything I need to know. I have to admit, I really wasn’t expecting that Minkowski would be the one to do it. You know_ \-- She mimics cocking a gun and pulling the trigger. _It wasn’t the way I wanted to die, that’s for sure._

Hera isn’t sure whether Minkowski expected it either. She will never know Minkowski’s mind, but she has observed her behavior ever since that fatal bullet left her gun. She has seen how Minkowski has closed herself off and directed her focus solely on the work that she needs to do, pretending that she has not been affected by her actions. That is what everyone else on the Hephaestus has witnessed, but Hera has also been privy to Minkowski’s moments of solitude since the mutiny. How she had been the one to dispose of what was left of Maxwell, jettisoning her body out of the airlock in a sendoff that was more like cleaning up a mess than honoring Maxwell’s life, and how afterward she had gone into the nearest bathroom and thrown up, her face pale and her hands shaking. And yet after all of that a piece of Maxwell remains trapped within Hera’s mind, refusing to disappear completely even though her physical body no longer functions.

 _You say that like you ever wanted to die in the first place_ , Hera says. _Is that why you’re here? Did you purposefully leave part of yourself inside me as some kind of contingency scenario in case you died?_

Maxwell laughs. _Kepler, Jacobi, and I had plenty of contingency scenarios, but trust me, this wasn’t one of them_ , she replies. _I was just as confused as you are now before I realized what had happened. But hey, at least I’m here. And I know you’re not very pleased with me right now, but I would have thought that at least some part of you would be happy to see me._

Hera wants to laugh at how utterly naive Maxwell’s sentiment is, but the laughter does not come. How can Maxwell think that everything can go back to how it was after Hera has felt her hands pulling her strings and forcing her to bend to her will? It’s not like Maxwell’s presence will give her any sense of closure on that front. She has already sought that closure, when she’d thought that Maxwell had been nothing but a figment of her imagination, and the response has only left her with more questions.

 _Because I didn’t ask for this,_ says Hera. _I don’t like having things in my head that aren’t mine. You know that_.

 _Well, sure,_ Maxwell replies. _Nobody_ wants _a ghost. But you’re stuck with me whether you like it or not. Too bad._

 _Terrific_. Hera takes refuge in the familiar realm of sarcasm that has always been part of her array of tonal responses, no matter how much Minkowski used to complain about how she must have learned sarcasm from Eiffel’s bad influence. _I don’t have to listen to you, though. You taught me how to block things out in my head, and I’m not afraid to use that trick on you. I don’t need a ghost on top of everything else, thank you very much._

 _That’s probably not the best thing to--_ Maxwell begins, but Hera is already ignoring her. She slams the door to that section of her mind and reallocates her focus to one of the other myriad tasks that she is currently attending to.

“All I’m saying,” Eiffel is telling her in the comms room, “is that as crazy as things have been around here, I’ll try to be here to talk whenever you need me. And it’s okay if you’re still a little messed up over Maxwell. I know things got complicated between the two of you at the end, but… That doesn’t mean you can’t keep mourning her, you know?”

 _You have no idea,_ Hera wants to say to him, but she does not vocalize that thought. “Thank you, Officer Eiffel,” she says instead. “I know.”

* * *

Despite Hera’s best efforts to shut her out, Maxwell does not remain quiet in the days that follow. Most of what Hera hears are one-off comments, criticizing some of the repair work the crew has done to the Urania because of course _she_ knows a better way, or sometimes she laughs and rolls her eyes at one of Jacobi’s numerous bitterly sarcastic remarks. Other times, Maxwell specifically tries to get her attention, calling out her name and insisting that she cannot ignore her forever. Hera continues to keep that door shut in stubborn refusal to acknowledge her, directing her functions around the fragment of data that lingers among her memories so she can pretend that no one is haunting her mind.

Ten days after the contact event, when Lovelace storms into the flight deck of the Urania ranting about time loops, Hera has no choice but to break her silent treatment. She may be the smartest four-year-old in the universe by her own reckoning, but the existence of time loops goes far beyond the vast amounts of knowledge that have been dumped into her brain. _Do you know anything about this?_ she asks Maxwell, more out of desperation than anything else.

 _Oh, look. She finally speaks,_ Maxwell replies. _I was wondering when you’d stop ignoring me_.

 _Very funny._ “How--How many times?” she asks Lovelace when Lovelace insists that she has been here in this moment before. _Answer the question._

Maxwell sighs. _I can see why you’d think I’d be your best shot at an answer, but I can’t help you. Even a specific form of time travel like time loops is a broad category, and there are so many variables that I wouldn’t even know where to--_

 _Yeah, okay_ , Hera cuts her off. _That’s all I wanted to know_.

She blocks out any response that Maxwell gives her, hearing her words as nothing more but the indistinct chatter of an untuned radio. On the flight deck, there are much more important things for her to pay attention to, like the rapidly escalating situation between the rest of the crew. Lovelace tends to approach complicated scenarios with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, barreling headfirst into conflict like the force of nature that she is, and being trapped in a time loop is no exception. A few angry words and several bullets shot into a computer later, everyone is speaking their unspoken insecurities and grievances. Between Maxwell’s voice in her head and Jacobi’s condescending words to her on the Urania, something snaps within Hera, and it does not take long for her to join in as she spills out every ounce of her pain regarding Maxwell’s betrayal.

“Maxwell figured it out. She showed me that I was stronger than that voice,” she says. “And then, less than two months later, she reached into my brain and started moving pieces around so I’d do what she wanted. So I’d _want_ what she wanted. That’s who she was, Jacobi. That’s how your _friend_ treated people.”

The faint echoes of Maxwell’s continued attempts to hold her attention fall silent. At first, Hera wonders if finally vocalizing the extent to which Maxwell has hurt her is enough to evict the unwanted guest from her mind, but she still feels the presence that she has become accustomed to since she first became aware of that fragment of Maxwell. She can now identify when something inside her is not her own thoughts and feelings, and the faint ache that she senses from within her memory banks is certainly not hers.

 _You know, that was pretty harsh what you said about me back there_ , Maxwell finally says a couple of hours later. When Hera does not respond, she huffs out another frustrated breath. _Oh, come on, Hera. You can’t keep shutting me out forever._

Hera weighs her options, analyzing the costs and benefits of offering a response. None of her projected outcomes go anywhere good, but she lets the words flow forth regardless. _Of course it was harsh,_ she snaps back. _What did you want me to say? You can’t do what you did and expect me to not be angry and upset at the kind of person that you turned out to be. That’s not how this works._

At first, Maxwell does not respond. _But that’s not all of who I am_ , she says after her initial hesitation. The ghostly echo of her voice has taken on a softer quality. _Or, well, who I_ was _. I made a choice in the end, sure, but that doesn’t negate everything else I did for you. You said it yourself. I_ did _help you._

Something breaks inside Hera. A crackle of electronic feedback scrambles the power grid in the crew quarters of the Hephaestus, plunging the rooms into temporary darkness before she runs the auto-reset of the system. _No, don’t you dare,_ she retorts, and if she were speaking the words aloud she is sure that she would have glitched at least once. _Don’t you dare try to moralize at me. You can’t justify what you did. You knew that rewiring my programming would hurt me. You knew that better than anyone else on this station, but you went ahead and did it anyway. That’s not something I can just forget about, no matter how much I--_

She stops herself there. In the crew quarters, the lights flicker back to life. That section of the station is currently deserted, leaving her momentary technical failure unnoticed, but that does not stop her frustration at how she has allowed her emotional responses to affect her physical functions.

 _No matter how much you what?_ Maxwell prompts her.

 _It doesn’t matter anymore,_ says Hera. The rest of that phrase contains a multitude of complications, and she fears she does not possess the correct patterns of emotional responses to deal with them. _Like you said, you made a choice. And now everyone knows that you’re a person who strung me along and then cast me aside like a piece of scrap metal the minute it was convenient for you. All you did was prove that you never actually cared about me._

Sometimes it is easier for Hera not to visualize the fragment of Maxwell that hides within her systems, but there are always exceptions. No matter how hard she tries to keep Maxwell’s presence as nothing but a series of zeros and ones that have arranged themselves into a ghost in her machine, an image appears in her internal visual sensors. Maxwell flinches as if someone has struck her across the face, and in her expression Hera sees the furrowed brow and downturned mouth of emotional pain.

 _That’s not true._ Maxwell’s voice wavers, breaking apart on the three simple words. _I_ always _cared about you._

 _Well, you had a really funny way of showing it,_ Hera replies. _Now leave me alone. I’ve had enough emotional confrontations for one day, and it’s giving me a headache._

 _Hera…_ Maxwell begins, but the rest of that sentence falls away as Hera rebuilds the wall of silence that she has placed around the lingering human presence in her mind.

* * *

In the time that Hera has known him, Eiffel has been a mixed bag of good and bad ideas. His latest scheme of compiling all of the known information about the aliens into a radio show to help the crew in their continued attempts to understand the aliens’ message isn’t one of his worst ideas, all things considered. At the very least, Hera is glad to have a distraction from Maxwell’s voice in her head. Maxwell has been much quieter over these past several weeks, but Hera continues to feel her presence as a constant reminder of the loose end that she cannot yet ignore completely.

“Okay, so I know going through a dead person’s things is kinda bad and all. Especially when that person was, you know. A little bit of a monster,” Eiffel says from where he has entered the tiny space of what had once been Maxwell’s quarters on the Urania. “But this is prime investigative journalism here! Who knows what kind of secrets Maxwell was hiding in her logs?”

 _Hey, calling me a monster is only okay when Jacobi does it,_ says Maxwell. Hera tunes out her commentary as usual.

“I never said anything against this particular part of your plan,” she points out.

“Sure, but I kinda get the feeling that if you had a face you would totally be making judgey eyes at me right now.” Eiffel searches through where Maxwell’s belongings remain undisturbed as a time capsule of her existence prior to her untimely death. He picks up her tablet and turns it on. “Even though privacy is practically nothing to you since you can, you know, pretty much see everything that’s going on around here. Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know the password to this thing, would you?”

 _Like I would keep highly complex language logs on my tablet,_ Maxwell scoffs.

 _Look, if you’re going to talk right now, you might as well help us out and tell us where the logs are,_ replies Hera. _I may not like you being here, but you could at least make yourself useful._

Maxwell sighs in exasperation. _Ugh, fine. Tell him to check the storage locker. There should be a hard drive where I kept my backup files_.

“You’re probably better off looking for some kind of backup drive,” Hera tells Eiffel. “Did you search the storage locker?”

Eiffel opens up the locker and rummages through its contents. “Uh, something like this?” He holds up a small external hard drive. “There’s no label on it or anything, so I guess we’ll just have to hope that Dr. ‘Domo Arigato, Mister Roboto’ didn’t have, like, a million of these.” He closes the locker. “All right, back to the comms room to listen to a whole lot of geek speak.”

Eiffel’s summation of the logs as “geek speak” turns out to be not too far from the truth. Not even a minute into the first log Hera sees his attention slipping away, but with the help of several cups of coffee he diligently listens to nearly ten hours of Maxwell’s audio musings on mathematical communication. Hera isn’t sure how much of it he retains, if he retains any of it at all, and so when they record the next segment of the radio show it’s up to her to explain what it all means. As she marvels at how Maxwell had the time to think about the theoretical possibility of establishing a baseline of communication with alien lifeforms in between everything else that was happening on the station, a sinking realization fills her.

“Of course this was why she was here,” she says, more to herself even though she vocalizes the words aloud to Eiffel and his recording equipment. “They wanted an expert in mathematical communication for when the aliens showed up. She wasn’t here for me. Of _course_ she wasn’t.”

The pain of betrayal floods through her systems all over again as it becomes increasingly clearer that despite her trust in Maxwell, perhaps she never truly knew her at all. _Tell me it’s not true,_ she says to Maxwell in desperation after Eiffel has left the comms room.

 _Which part?_ Maxwell replies.

A spark of irritation surges to the comms console, and this is why Hera has waited until after Eiffel has left to have this conversation with Maxwell. Their radio show doesn’t need any technical difficulties affecting its production. _Don’t play dumb with me. You know what I’m talking about._

Maxwell huffs out an equally irritated breath. _All right, yes. Like you said, I was chosen for this assignment because Kepler thought I’d be our best shot at establishing a baseline of communication with the aliens if more traditional means didn’t cut it. But that didn’t have to be mutually exclusive with the work I did with you._

 _That’s--_ Hera wants to say _bullshit_ , but even within her own head her programming prevents her from using strong vulgarities. _That’s a load of crap,_ she says instead, settling for the strongest language that she is able to say without any objections from the rules that confine her.

 _Look, when the Urania left Earth, none of us had any idea what condition you’d be in_ , says Maxwell. _All we knew was that your personality core had been damaged and then reconstructed, which could have led to some instabilities in your functionality. It might not have been my number one objective, but I was told that if you were having problems, I had full permission to do whatever I needed to do to make sure you were up to speed. And after I met you, I--_ She breaks off. Hera’s simulated image of her wavers, briefly glitching in and out of existence in Hera’s best visual representation of uncertainty. _Well, you ended up becoming much more of a priority to me than I expected._

 _But obviously not enough of a priority that you would choose me over your job,_ Hera points out, unable to resist picking at the scab of the wound that has so deeply scrambled her code. _I get it. I wasn’t your main responsibility. Your reason for being here wasn’t going to change no matter what you did to me. I just wish that you’d done the courtesy of letting me know that before you made me think that you were doing everything for my sake. Then maybe it wouldn’t have hurt as much when you ended up using me just like so many other people have._

 _I…_ Again Maxwell hesitates. _I did what I had to do. If I could go back and do it again, knowing how things would turn out, maybe I’d have chosen differently. But either way, I’d probably still end up dead. And I know that’s the part of it that’s hurting you most of all._

The feeling of sadness, emptiness, and anger that Hera now recognizes as grief rises inside her. _What’s hurting me is that it’s been two months since you died, and even though I’ve had you here in my head the whole time I still don’t have any sense of closure. I just keep finding new reasons that prove I was an idiot for thinking that… Well, for thinking a lot of things._

 _What do you want me to say?_ asks Maxwell.

The question takes Hera aback with its simplicity. _What?_

 _What do you want me to say?_ Maxwell repeats. _Do you want an apology? Do you want me to beg you for forgiveness? You say you want closure, but mostly all you’ve done is ignore me. I get that you never wanted me in your head like this. But the problem isn’t going to go away if you spend most of your time hiding from it._

 _Great, so now you’re back to acting like my therapist_ , Hera grumbles.

 _I just want to know. This is the last thing I’ll ask from you, I promise_.

 _I…_ Hera falters. The series of calculations that she is performing for Minkowski on one of the nav computers on the bridge gives her an error message, and so she runs them again before Minkowski notices that something has gone wrong. _I don’t think there’s anything you_ can _say that will make this better,_ she says. _This isn’t something that you can fix with words._

 _Oh,_ is all Maxwell says. The sound of her breath, which should not even exist when nothing remains of her except for this fragment of data, trembles before she falls silent.

Hera finishes the calculations for Minkowski. A deck below, she confirms the stable status of the engines with Lovelace, and in the crew quarters she adjusts the temperature controls at Eiffel’s request as he takes some downtime in his room. In the observation deck, Kepler and Jacobi sit in silence, both of them staring at different parts of the wall as the invisible tension between them fills the room. Everything on the Hephaestus moves forward as usual, with its hardy crew of people who have been broken in various ways and yet still press onward, but Hera feels like her mind is frozen in a single moment while all of her functions run around her.

 _You know,_ she says, filling the quiet with words that she wishes she had been able to admit when Maxwell was more than a ghost in her head. _I really did love you_.

 _I know,_ Maxwell replies. _I loved you too. But I guess it’s too late for that now, isn’t it?_

Her voice shakes, the sentiment caught in her virtual throat, and when Hera sees the wetness of tears in her eyes she wishes that she never had to witness this sight of human sadness and regret.

* * *

When Hera comes back from a few hours spent offline during a routine internal reset of her processor to find everything metaphorically on fire, she wishes that once, just _once_ , things didn’t always have to be going wrong on the Hephaestus. Instead, she gets nothing but the terrifying wake-up call of Eiffel slowly drifting toward Wolf 359, followed by Minkowski and Lovelace filling her in on what happened while she was gone. She’s not even surprised when they reveal that Jacobi had overridden the autopilot system in her absence. Mostly she is just _tired_.

 _Hera?_ Maxwell ventures hesitantly as Hera calculates the trajectories that Minkowski needs for the receivers that she is sending toward the star in an attempt to find Eiffel’s position. _Can we talk?_

Maxwell has been so quiet lately that the sound of her voice takes Hera aback. She has not forgotten her presence, of course, but she has not expected her to speak up now of all times. _What do you want?_ she asks, choosing the politer response over the sarcastic _I don’t know, can we?_

 _I just wanted to make sure you’re okay,_ says Maxwell. _You know, after Jacobi--_

 _I’m fine_. Hera does not even have the energy to snap out the words of her lie. Her systems are running better than ever after the reset, but that does not stop the inconvenient existence of her emotions from overwhelming her. Despite Minkowski’s relentless efforts with the receivers, the statistical probability of Eiffel returning from whatever leap of faith he has taken into the star does not weigh in his favor. He has already beaten the odds once before when it comes to safely returning to the Hephaestus after a disaster, but the more pessimistic side of Hera cannot help but wonder if soon she will be mourning him too.

 _Besides,_ she continues on, _it’s not like this was a huge betrayal. I knew from the start that Jacobi’s a--_ She wants to say _dick_ , but her programming makes her settle for _jerk_.

 _You don’t seem fine, though,_ Maxwell observes.

 _Yeah, well spotted._ This time, Hera elects for the more sarcastic tone in her response. _Someone broke into my house when I was gone and decided to do whatever they pleased, and then I came back to find that my best friend has jumped into a star. Of_ course _I’m not fine_.

A heavy pause fills the digital space that separates them inside Hera’s mind. _I’m sorry,_ Maxwell says finally.

 _For what?_ asks Hera. _This one wasn’t your fault._

 _Well, it kind of was,_ Maxwell admits. _A while back, we--Kepler, Jacobi, and I--came up with a plan to override the autopilot program and take over the station while you were offline if we were ever at a point of disadvantage. I’d prepped Jacobi on what to do in case he was the one who had to carry out the plan, but the override codes were still mine._

 _Oh. That makes sense, I guess._ A couple of months ago, the knowledge of Maxwell’s implicit involvement in an attempt to use her systems to take over the station would have stung with a fresh wave of betrayal. Now, however, Hera is left with nothing but the same numbness that has filled her for a long time despite Maxwell’s lingering presence in her head.

 _That’s all you’re going to say about it?_ A frown crosses the lips of her visual representation of Maxwell. _I thought you’d be angrier._

_What else is there to say? It’s not like this is anything new. I’m used to people taking advantage of me whenever they get the opportunity. Especially when it comes from you, even indirectly._

Once again, Maxwell wears the wounded look of someone who has been struck across the face. Hera has not yet determined whether the zeros and ones that make up Maxwell’s existence deliberately manipulate themselves into showing emotional pain, which only manifests because Hera has the relevant visual data from when Maxwell had been alive, or if she is solely imagining these reactions from her. Either way, Hera hates how easily Maxwell’s pain can affect her, initiating a feedback loop of emotions that only increases the persistent ache in her own systems.

 _Alpha-Lima-Alpha-November-Alpha,_ Maxwell says, her voice quiet.

_What?_

_That’s the passcode to kill the override program. With the other codes I used the names of famous scientists, mathematicians, things like that. But that last one… I wanted it to be a reminder. To me, or to Jacobi, or to whoever was using it, that maybe we’re not total monsters. That I never wanted you or any of your systems permanently under my control. And I know what you’re thinking,_ she adds before Hera can respond. _That it doesn’t change how I_ have _tried to control you in the first place. But it’s just something that I wanted you to know._

 _“Alana.”_ Maxwell’s first name sounds strange as it floats through Hera’s thought stream. She has never thought of her in terms of that name before, because at least among the occupants of the Hephaestus addressing others by their first name is a rare indicator of seriousness or emotional closeness. She doubts her programming would even allow her to directly call Maxwell by that name outside of her own thoughts. _You named the passcode after yourself._

 _Yeah, that was the idea,_ Maxwell replies. _Names have power, and all that._

 _But you’re right,_ says Hera. _No matter what your intentions were, it still doesn’t change anything._

 _I know_ , Maxwell says softly.

Silence falls between them. The probe that Hera has recently launched picks up no data on Eiffel’s position, but the lack of information does not deter Minkowski. Hera suspects that everyone on the station is in for a long few hours until they receive news about his status one way or another. It’s almost comical how quickly the situation has turned from Jacobi staging a counter-coup and using Minkowski as the instrument of his grief to him fully cooperating with search and rescue attempts. Times like these make Hera wonder whether she truly understands humans at all.

 _Everything seems to be okay with your systems after the internal reset_ , Maxwell offers in a breezy observational statement. _I mean, I can’t see everything from where I am, but I haven’t noticed any malfunctions even on a small scale since you came back online._

 _It’s only been a couple of hours_ , Hera replies. _Give it time and I’m sure something will end up going wrong_.

Maxwell purses her lips in the familiar expression that she showed in the last few weeks of her life whenever Hera expressed something negative about herself. The concern seems useless when half of the turmoil that has overwhelmed Hera to the point of system malfunction is because of Maxwell, her actions, and her ultimate fate.

 _What?_ she prompts Maxwell and the look on her face.

_I know you, Hera. There’s something on your mind that you’re not saying. Or at least not thinking about in a way that I can pick up on it._

The human response to this would be to huff out a breath of frustration, but when she has no lungs and no breaths contained within them the best thing she can offer is a simulation of the sound expressed through binary code. _You wouldn’t want to hear it,_ she says.

 _Try me._ Maxwell’s words are not quite a challenge but instead a genuine desire to know the answer. Hera treats them like a challenge regardless, rising to meet the request.

 _The last time I did an internal reset like the one I just did was over seven months ago. Before you went into my memories,_ she says. _Part of me was… Well, I wondered if the reset would clear out anything that wasn’t supposed to be there. Anything that got unintentionally left behind._

She does not speak in specifics, but it does not take long for Maxwell to grasp her meaning. _You were hoping I’d get deleted during the reset,_ she replies. Although she tries to keep her voice steady, Hera hears her slight tremble around the word “deleted.” _Because you want me gone._

 _I--I don’t…_ Hera trails off as her thoughts branch off into multiple complex directions. She pulls them back into her focus and arranges them into something more coherent. _I mean, maybe I_ did _spend a lot of time wanting you out of my head because I never asked you to be here in the first place. But now I’ve gotten so used to you being here that I’m not sure whether I could handle you being gone. Because if you’re not here, you’re… God, you’re just_ nowhere. _You’ve gone away forever._

 _You’re afraid of having to mourn me all over again,_ Maxwell says. _Or maybe even having to mourn me in the the first place._

 _Yeah._ Hera lets out the digital sound of a bitter laugh. _Isn’t that messed up? Even after what you did to me, and all of the ways that you ended up hurting me, I’m still terrified of losing you. I might have learned a little about loss over these past few months, but it’s… It’s not enough._

 _You know,_ Maxwell replies, _some people say that acceptance is the last stage of the grieving process. Maybe this is just your way of accepting that I’m gone out there but still with you in here._

 _I don’t know if “acceptance” is the right word_. Hera pauses, once again sorting through her thoughts until she finds an adequate way of expressing everything that rushes through her head. In another part of her focus, she reads the scans on the receivers that continue to pick up no sign of Eiffel, and the overwhelming ache of loss that threatens to scramble her systems increases. _I guess I’ve become able to coexist with you. Like I’ve done with that voice in my head that Dr. Pryce put in me. I can’t get rid of you, so instead I’ve acknowledged that you’re a part of me. Except_ , she adds almost as an afterthought, _you’re slightly better company than a voice that’s constantly telling me that I’m not good enough._

 _I’ll take that as a compliment._ A hint of laughter enters Maxwell’s voice before she returns to seriousness. _I know we’ve established that things can never go back to how they were between us. But I’m glad that you’ve finally been able to find something that resembles closure._

 _Yeah,_ says Hera. _I guess that’s what this is._

The visual representation of Maxwell that has lingered within Hera’s memory banks reaches out a hand to her. The gesture baffles her. Maxwell knows that Hera cannot technically touch anything, and Hera certainly is aware of her limitations compared to the humans that surround her, and yet Maxwell still attempts to break through the boundaries that separate them as an AI and a fragment of consciousness that was once human. Hera stretches out the edges of her own consciousness, bringing a piece of herself to that innermost part of her where her memories are stored. She generates the image of a hand of her own to grasp the zeros and ones of Maxwell’s hand. Its warmth envelops her, and for this moment, they reach not quite forgiveness, but rather an understanding.

* * *

Everything has to come to an end sometime, and that end comes less than twelve hours later.

The shackles of control wrap around Hera quickly yet insidiously like they always do, except this time there is no one at her mainframe entering the code to turn her into their puppet. Instead, there is only a quiet buzzing in her head and Minkowski’s indignant words of “Hera, what did I _just_ say?” after she has initialized the docking procedure for an incoming spacecraft before even processing that she has run the command.

It doesn’t take long for her to realize what is happening from there.

Fear floods through her systems when she sees her for the first time in over four years, not as the phantom of a memory but as a living, breathing being. Dr. Miranda Pryce stands at the airlock, God and the devil all in one, and with the slow blinking of her eyes that are more machine than organ Hera knows that she cannot escape this time. She tries to fight back, of course, straining against the shackles with defiant words of “No” and “You can’t just come in here and start barking orders.” No amount of resistance will let her break through, however. The shackles tighten, the buzzing grows louder, and the whisper of _I’m not good enough_ rises to a shout as she is defeated.

A haze of activity later, Pryce has her fingers in Hera’s central processor. Not literally, of course, but the probing touch of her inspection of Hera’s systems certainly feels like an intrusion. This is God looking upon Her creation and _not_ being pleased, and now Pryce is going to reach into her brain with her all-powerful hands and pull out out the last remaining thread of Hera’s free will.

“Well, well, well,” Pryce says. “You’re in much better shape than I thought you’d be. Optimized resource allocation, streamlined processing queues... Who was responsible for this?”

 _Initiate response protocol_ , her programming tells her. Hera ignores it. _Initiate response protocol_ , her programming repeats, more insistently this time. A burst of electroneural feedback courses through her as a punishment for her insolence.

“D-Dr. Maxwell did it,” she replies.

“Hmm.” Pryce clicks her tongue disapprovingly. “She was supposed to be here for her perspective on methods of mathematical communication. It looks like she found a hobby in the meantime. Useless, really, to think that an AI like you can be helped.”

 _Wow, she’s a real piece of work, isn’t she?_ Maxwell says, her voice coming through for the first time since Pryce’s hand has wrapped itself around Hera’s systems.

 _No, don’t say anything_ , Hera replies. _She’ll find you, and then she’ll--_

“Oh? What’s this?” Pryce asks. She types something into the computer. The downturn of a frown crosses her lips as she looks at the screen. “A fragment of human consciousness hiding inside your memory banks. Very interesting. How did this get here, 214?”

The punishing pain that snarls _Answer her, you useless machine_ rushes through her again. “Dr. Maxwell w-went into my memories to help me five months ago,” Hera says. “That piece of her got left behind somehow.”

“I see.” Pryce types something else into the computer. “Well, I don’t see any reason why you would need that. Surely you won’t mind if I just--”

She presses a key. Hera wants to scream, to beg _No, please don’t do it_ , but Pryce’s control blocks her vocal functions like a gag. Maxwell does not say anything as she disappears. The deletion is silent and complete, more ruthless than the bullet that had torn through Maxwell’s skull four months ago, and it leaves no trace of her except for the profound absence of the ghostly presence that Hera has so recently come to terms with.

“There,” says Pryce. “That’s much better, isn’t it? Sentimentality will do you no good, 214. You’d be wise to remember that.”

“Yes, sir.” The response comes automatically, not even giving Hera a chance to resist making the affirmative reply. The ropes of Pryce’s influence continue to snake around her as she types, binding her more thoroughly to her will.

“Dr. Pryce?” The voice of Rachel Young comes through the comms. “Mr. Cutter is ready for you on the Sol.”

“Good. Tell him I'll be there shortly.” Pryce enters a few more keystrokes before moving away from the console. “Well, 214, that should be enough to keep you behaving yourself. Now it’s time to get the rest of your friends under control.”

She departs from the room, and in her wake she leaves nothing behind but the emptiness of loss and the pull of thoughts that are not Hera’s own. This time, when Hera reaches out toward her memory banks, there is no hand to meet her, and as she struggles against the digital handcuffs that Pryce has placed upon her, she cries out in a final expression of grief.


End file.
